Analysis and comment from Memphis, Tennessee, on media, politics, culture, science, my life and anything else that catches my eye.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

The Presidential Press Conference: 1864

Victor Davis Hanson has a list of questions the modern press might have asked Lincoln during the fourth years of the Civil War.

Sample:

Mr. Lincoln, do you not think it was naïve to assume that Northerners could impose by force Yankee-style democracy and culture on the traditional society of the South? Isn’t this arrogance on our part to think we can force others to be like us?

Mr. Lincoln, are you aware of a small cabal of abolitionists in your War Department who in secret planned this disaster to further their own hidden support for the Negro and hoodwinked you into starting this war of northern aggression?

Given the illustrious war record of General McClellan and your own murky past as a soldier, isn’t it wiser for the American people to turn over their armies to someone with some real experience with war?

You have to know your history to get this last. McClellan was famous for letting his armies sit in camp, and refusing to carry out the orders of Lincoln to prosecute battle.